Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder

I didn't marry you because you were perfect. I didn't even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn't a house that protected them; and it wasn't our love that protected them--it was that promise.

Eternity | Language | Love | Words |

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

Statesmen have to bend to the collective will of their peoples or be broken

Business | Disparagement | Error | Experience | History | Hope | Influence | Justice | Love | Mankind | Nations | People | Service | Will | World | Business |

Thucydides NULL

I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire.

Ability | Envy | Exaggeration | Friend | Men | Story | Wishes | Think |

William Shakespeare

As by your high imperial majesty I had in charge at my depart for France, as procurator to your excellence, to marry Princess Margaret for your grace, so, in the famous ancient city Tours, in presence of the Kings of France and Sicil, the Dukes of Orleans, Calabar, Bretagne, and Alencon, seven earls, twelve barons, and twenty reverend bishops, I have performed my mask and was espoused. Henry VI, Act I, Scene 1

Abundance | Books | Ceremony | Fear | Heart | Love | Rage | Recompense | Strength | Learn |

William Shakespeare

But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool; and time, that takes survey of all the world, must have a stop.

Good | Privilege |

William Godwin

For there is such a thing as a broken spirit.

Authority | Censure | Energy | Indulgence | Man | Nothing | Quiet | Reality | Reason | Silence | Virtue | Virtue | Will |

William James

Our life is always deeper than we know, is always more divine than it seems, and hence we are able to survive degradations and despairs which otherwise must engulf us.

Cost | Intelligence | Universe |

William Shakespeare

O, let us have him, for his silver hairs will purchase us a good opinion, and buy men's voices to commend our deeds.

Books |

Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen

She had this one limitation, his darling Lois; she couldn’t look on her own eyes, had no idea what she was, resented almost his attention being so constantly fixed on something she wasn’t aware of.

Melancholy |

William Shakespeare

SILVIUS: How many actions most ridiculous/Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy? CORIN: Into a thousand that I have forgotten. SILVIUS: O, thou didst then ne'er love so heartily! If thou remember'st not the slightest folly that ever love did make thee run into, thou hast not loved: or if thou hast not sat as I do now, wearying thy hearer in thy mistress' praise, thou hast not loved.

Innocence |

William Shakespeare

Rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, which gives men stomach to digest his words, with better appetite.

Action | Cause | Grace | Little | World | Blessed |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I guess what I want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights but also devote myself to God.

Elizabeth Gilbert

I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.

Happy | People | Words |

Elizabeth Gilbert

For if there is one thing I have learned over the years about men, it is that feelings of powerlessness do not usually bring forth their finest qualities.

Love |

Elizabeth Gilbert

There’s a reason they call God a presence- because God is right here, right now.

Care | Man |

Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If you desire faith, then you have faith enough.

Change | Comfort | Day | Love | Sense | Smile | Thought | Thought |

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine — If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years, as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have; the sea could be as readily contained in that house-trough, as her whole affection be monopolized by him — Tush! He is scarcely a degree nearer than her dog, or her horse — It is not in him to be loved like me, how can she love in him what he has not?

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

Ay, the old man said. Galanos. Come on galanos.

E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

I have argued all along, no system of machinery or economic doctrine or theory stands on its own feet: it is invariably built on a metaphysical foundation, that is to say, upon man's basic outlook on life, its meaning and its purpose.

Technology | Will |

Ester and Jerry Hicks

Children coming forth today have a greater capacity to deal with the greater variety of information that is coming forth than you did.

Better | Will | World |